Since 2023, U.S immigration has fallen by 85%. It has fallen by 50% to 1.2mn people in the EU, and by 75% in the U.K. This comes at a time when both the U.K and Europe depend on immigrants to produce population growth.

Generation X (those born between 1966 and 1980, sandwiched between boomers and millennials) are under harsher financial pressure than boomers to provide for the needs of both their children and parents at a time when the costs of university and elderly care outstrip average family incomes.

Maduro’s mismanagement of the economy has devastated the nation’s golden egg: oil. Crude production plunged more than 70% since its peak in the late 1990s. This despite the fact that the Orinoco Belt oil reserves contains more than 15% of the world’s oil.

How authoritarians destroyed the Venezuelan economy: the country’s GDP is less than one-fifth of Colombia’s after shrinking an astonishing 78% in dollar terms.

Tech sector has never been culturally stronger and more emotionally exuberant. This dual fact is reflected in investor confidence: according to one estimate, spending on AI accounted for 92% of America’s GDP growth in the first half of 2025.

Working on two articles explaining liberal ideas behind executive curtailment, but for now do note that my family in the Dominican Republic already knew this was going to happen. Local news picked up on military build up at base in Puerto Plata 2weeks ago. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

AI spending set to exceed $660bn by 2030, but corporate adoption is down (currently fewer than 15% of US companies use AI). Tech companies are now borrowing to finance AI splurge, and banking on mass layoffs (replacing 40% of tasks, creating 20% unemployment) to makeup for risky investment.

This graphic overturns the popular impression that youth is synonymous with progressive politics. It might rather confirms the idea that youth is associated with rebelliousness: MAGA values/attitudes are perhaps seen by young men as more transgressive of social norms.

Diploma divide/urban v rural sorting is real: more racially diversified, college-educated, and urban areas voted for Dems, while homogenous rural areas voted for Repub. That said, as @jacobhacker.bsky.social notes, economics isn’t everything: Latinos voted GOP for ‘family values’.

Excellent article making a bold, unsettling claim—the administration views the history of segregation and its influence on the nation as a threat to its nativist program—and backing it up with detailed technicality on the political stakes of disparate impact liability. Great work.

Sobering thought from Robert Burgess: “A nation’s currency is not much different than a company’s share price in that it’s probably the best indicator of sentiment. If so, the US is in trouble.”

This is one of the clearest examples of how affectively polarized individuals go on to poison public life. Here tribal emotions rule, principles are absent, and the process of reason-giving is undercut.

We have hit 32% towards our goal. It's an incredible amount to have raised for a publication our size. Thank you all so much for your continued support. Happy Holidays! gofund.me/6a59f06f4

George Will, a pessimist by temperament, offers this biting view of the year 2025.

As we debate and argue, may we never forget or neglect the humanity of others. May we recognize in others something of the human, one who errs just as we do. There is no liberal who is not first liberal at heart: generous. Richard Hofstadter understood this. We can too. Merry Christmas to you all.

Just back from leading Xmas eve service at our tiny rural church. You better believe we talked about baby Jesus having to be hustled across a border as a refugee to escape the secret police of the repulsive king, with the wise men helping. A subversive from the manger on--merry Christmas y'all!

As Samir Varma knows firsthand, socialism was bankrupting both the Soviet Union and every other ‘third world’ country foolish enough to stick to it. As usual, the cost of this intellectual stubbornness was prolonged pain for ordinary people.

This to me is the best article of 2025. Samir Varma’s offers a riveting account of how India’s embrace of socialism brought the country to the precipice and how three Oxbridge-educated geniuses had the independence of mind to adopt market reforms before it was late. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

France is the only nation in the rich world where pensioners have higher average incomes than the working age population, and where, according to analyst François Valentin, pensions ensure that the country is able to meet Nato’s 2% target for military spending.

According to James Kanagasooriam, the AI revolution may trigger a “collar flip”: white-collar workers who live in rich locales will see their financial prospects diminish in the next 10 years, while blue collar workers will be in higher demand. The college-educated ‘left-behind’ may revolt.

The Great Reversal: “While once it was Germany flooding China with cars and machines, the direction reversed after Covid-19, with German car exports to China slumping 70% between 2022 and 2024.”

Last readings before Christmas @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social @yappelbaum.bsky.social @jamesmbradley.bsky.social

"The Chinese Communist Party is shaping AI in the country to reflect its political priorities and societal constraints. China’s ambitions for global AI governance should be understood and evaluated against that backdrop," write @jordicalbad.bsky.social and @mchangama.bsky.social.

Fareed Zakaria sees the National Security Policy as the strange pursuit of an economically stagnant (and Ruchir Sharma points out, politically volatile) Latin America at a time when being such a regional power offers little advantage to the U.S., especially in the emerging multipolar world.

Russell Vought moved to slash funding for the organization that made possible the medical relief of his own daughter. No one can accuse this bureaucrat of sentimental partiality. It is ruthless reason of state.

When I think of what liberalism stands for I think of Jimmy Lai, a true martyr for freedom. At the age of 12 he fled the oppression of Communist China by hiding in the bottom of a fishing boat. His destination? Hong Kong Island. reason.com/2025/12/19/j...

We liberals are very critical of our system of belief. We welcome socialist critiques that help us fix mistakes and adapt. People like @mattpolprof.bsky.social are all about that. What we don’t tolerate, however, what we oppose, is any system that irreverently crushes the human person like chalk.

Except for at least several months, it wasn’t even their goal. Go back and read the article carefully!!

Also, can we go back to talking with moral fortitude and exactitude? The silencing of health professionals did not just “suck”, as if we were observing the tragedy of an expectant teenager accidentally dropping his ice cream on the ground. Censorship was illiberal and immoral. It costs lives.

Yes, an open system based on transparency, accountability, and freedom is more moral than one based on secrecy, impunity, and repression. If that’s the “moral superiority” you are talking about, I full endorse this moral judgment. To think otherwise, especially after 20th century, is unserious.

The claim that the authorities did their best to keep people from dying is not just false, but demonstrably false, and I won’t allow it. Such a grand falsehood disrespects the memory of people who died PRECISELY because of the authoritarian dynamic in China. Go back and read the article carefully.

The article never claims that the U.S. is a “paragon of virtue”, so you can dispense with the commentary surrounding this claim. The article does state that the virtues of the U.S liberal system partly accounts for its better economic recovery.

I was told by a friend who lived in China for several decades as a persecuted religious minority that with this @liberalcurrents article I committed ‘Chinese-visa’ suicide. In his case, he cannot return to China because he and his family are on a no-entry list for practicing their religion.

After China’s illiberal policies hurt its economy, the state presented bogus youth unemployment data to hide this fact from the world. A brave professor pointed out that 16m people were missing from the initial state report, raising the real % from 21.3% to over 46%.

China is 1 of 4 economies that does not publish economic data, but is exceptional in being one which wants to be seen as the world’s top economy based on inscrutable figures. In 2024, China’s capital account had an inexplicable discrepancy of about $230bn between customs and balance-of-payments.

I do not take the U.S. response as “the prime” response. You mention Taiwan. I personally admired Japan’s response. Ever the orderly society, its citizens welcome government’s reasonable requests for short-term inconvenience for the sake of long-term national health.

Comments of this type from governors, media personalities, and even the president were appalling. The article is not an apologia or cover for the poor behavior of some American political figures. That said, everything must be in the right degree and proper measure. The fact of the matter…

The article makes no claim that the U.S. response was “better” in terms of preventing unavoidable deaths within its social context. American governors and other important institutions did however do a comparatively better job acknowledging its reality and protecting free speech.

There are a few closed societies, but their imprint on the world is minimal. China on the other hand is an economic Olympus. Its fact-hiding is a problem. Especially if, like China, you want to grow investment, build alliances, and convince economists that you are the top economy.

Whether China is the “archetypal” ‘closed society’ is debatable. There are quite a few other impressive contenders like North Korea and Cuba. Same goes for the U.S. Given its democratic decay, it’s possible to argue that on certain measures, some other democratic liberal society is more ‘open’.

China is moving at breakneck speed to recover its spot as world leader—ethics, human rights, and climate be damned. As I argue in the @liberalcurrents.com this disregard for liberal values will limit China’s ability to extend its network of moral support. www.liberalcurrents.com/china-betwee...

The FT’s Martin Wolf’s claim that with an Atlantic alliance the U.S can easily match the economic might of China is reinforced by the NYT’s claim that with the help of its liberal allies it can meet China on the battlefield. The problem is that the Trump admin is intentionally destroying this link.

Or if you prefer to support us directly through our patron system, consider this one-time discount on our Supporting Patron tier, with the benefits that come with it www.liberalcurrents.com/new-subscrib...

An incredibly chilling account of German Protestantism's role in the Nazi eugenics program from @gawattia.bsky.social www.liberalcurrents.com/the-devils-b...

Currently reading @lioneltrolling.bsky.social @hofrench.bsky.social @chrislhayes.bsky.social @glennloury.skystack.xyz and others

This is vitally important. As I've written, the left has a serious pipeline problem (www.vox.com/on-the-right...) and Liberal Currents is exactly the kind of place that could help solve it. Give them the money they need!

My latest article for @liberalcurrents.com is a review of Dagmar Herzog’s “The Question of Unworthy Life,” a sorrowful history of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ project and its religious backers. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-devils-b...

Today we are launching what we hope will be a transformative fundraising push. We are determined to increase our reach so we can compete with voices who are less than fully committed to, or who outright oppose, liberal values. Help us do it: www.gofundme.com/f/the-libera...

Latest article for @liberalcurrents.com is a review of @ztameez.bsky.social’s Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation (Holt, 2025), with some references to Sean M. Kelley’s American Slavers (Yale, 2024). www.liberalcurrents.com/the-american...

New article for @liberalcurrents.com on WW1 and the liberalism of fear: As I note, “it was President Woodrow Wilson, not Adolf Hitler, who first condemned foreign-born residents for pouring "the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries" of American life.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-politics...